The 27th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) will open with the film "The Road to Mandalay (再見瓦城)” on Nov. 23 and showcase 2 additional Taiwanese movies before wrapping up on Dec. 4.
The fourth feature film by filmmaker Midi Z (趙德胤), "The Road to Mandalay” follows a pair of illegal immigrants crossing into Thailand in search of a better life. When one's ambitions outweigh another, however, the two Burmese workers - played by Wu Ke-xi (吳可熙) and Kai Ko (柯震東) - struggle to reconcile their differences.
The two other films to be screened in Singapore are "White Ant (白蟻),” which involves a quiet bookstore clerk's uncontrollable fetish for female underwear, and "Absent Without Leave (不即不離),” which delineates a documentary maker's attempts to reconnect with his absent father.
"White Ant,” the debut fiction feature by documentary filmmaker Chu Hsien-che (朱賢哲), is a poignant and sensitive portrait on the perversion of desire. It provides an exposition on the nature of perversion itself, its genesis and transference through encounters. Ultimately, it shows how one deals with trauma and what it takes for one to desire freely again.
"Absent Without Leave,” Lau Kek-huat's (廖克發) debut feature documentary, navigates the murky waters of Malayan history that appears far removed from the present. What follows is the gradual unraveling of his grandfather's forgotten story - an absent father to the filmmaker's own absent father, but also a guerrilla Communist soldier, a protector, a martyr of Malaya during WWII.
Both Midi Z and Lau will attend the Singaporean screenings of their respective features.
‘27th Singapore International Film Festival'